Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has said that Sweden’s move to classify Taiwan as a province of China is “unacceptable” to the government and its people.
The Swedish Tax Agency announced last Wednesday that it would change the name of Taiwan from the “Republic of China (Taiwan)” to “Taiwan, Province of China.”
The reason provided was that the Swedish Tax Agency follows the International Organization for Standardization guidelines for country codes – ISO 3166 – and the name previously used did not match the Swedish name form for countries.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Andrew Lee said the Taiwan Mission in Sweden had been ordered to express grave concern to Stockholm. It also demanded an immediate correction, in order to defend national dignity and the rights of its people.
The foreign ministry will also make known their stance to the Swedish representative office in Taiwan and seek assistance, it said.
China does not recognise Taiwan as a country and has long pressured the international community over its status and the use of the Republic of China flag. Beijing maintains that the island-nation is a renegade province of China.
Two US departments recently decided to remove the Republic of China flag from Taiwan-related pages on their websites, with Foreign ministry spokesperson Lee calling the move “unacceptable” and “disappointing.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs then said that they had noticed China’s continual effort to restrict Taiwan’s space in the international realm, and that such moves were not conducive towards cross-strait relations.
Not-for-profit, run by journalists and completely independent. Contribute to our critical month-long HK$1m Funding Drive, help safeguard our independence and secure our operations for another year. Read how carefully we spend every cent in our Annual/Transparency Report.
[give_goal id=”150839″ show_text=”true” show_bar=”true”]
